Technical 354 Hemi Build Thread (Again)

Some of you may remember the first build thread I did on the engine build from last year, and to make a long story a little bit shorter that engine is no more. This time around we decided to pull out all the stops and make no compromises, and do it 100% correctly, which is what we should've done the first time. Since our old block was rendered unusable for the street after an attempt at sleeving all eight cylinders, I took out an ad on the HotHeads website and found an original virgin 354 block within 12 hours. Unfortunately, this block failed a pressure test at the machine shop the very next day. As you have probably surmised by now, we've had some pretty bad luck this summer. Fortunately for us, the man who sold us the block was a stand up guy and sold us his 354 Poly block cheaper than originally stated and took the bum block off our hands. From there we took the new block and all other pieces to Terry Walters Precision Engines in Roanoke VA, and he was a real pleasure to work with. If you're in the area and need some work done right, he's your guy. Anyway, we just picked the block up today and I'll be posting some pictures and videos of the process soon for all who are interested.

 

While waiting for the machine work to be finished, I disassembled all of the parts that needed to be cleaned. Cylinder heads, rocker shafts, and the oil pump to name a few. There was quite a bit of trash in the oiling system, which surprised me because we cleaned our parts very thoroughly the first go around. I am fairly sure that the machine shop we took the block to last year did not remove the rear oil gallery plugs and I wrongly assumed that they did, and since I did not have the tool to remove them I just cleaned the block with them in place. My fault. I only have a few pictures of some things we've done so far, but there will be more soon.


Checking installed height on valve springs and shimming to specs.


Masked head for paint.




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Since I have so many Hemi's yet to build (5) of the things, I am always on board for any new or maybe even old information. I have made a lot of mistakes in building these old motors and everytime I have paid the price for those mistakes with even more money. I will follow this thread with interest.

 

Terry Walters the pro stock guy?
What size spring are the heads cut for? BBC?
I'm not far behind you now, the machine shop is done with the block, honed the rods out to (he's still cussing me for that, .006?) BBC pins and I drilled a .125 champhered hole in the pin end, the machinest wants me to drill the pistons too for oil at the pin.
He hasn't started the heads yet.
I'll mock up for the flywheel/clutch, tob and pilot bearing as I have bits and pieces of a few different things to mate the 354 to '39 toploader. Once I do that then its back apart and off for balancing.

 

Yep Terry Walters the pro stock guy. I'll measure the springs when I get home, we got them from Crane along with the hydraulic roller cam. The cam card says the part # is 99838.

 

Just measured them. Spring OD is 1.465"


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What are the details of your build this go around?

 

We're working on my blown 354 out this way, as I type this.

Nice to see all this old Iron heading back into operation.

 

354 Poly block bored to 3.9775"
Stock crank
Balanced rotating assembly
Adjustable rockers from Rocker Arms Unlimited
Molnar rods
"555" Heads, they've been ported somewhat, but it was done by a cousin in the sixties while building it for his drag car.
Head studs
Hot Heads long tube headers
Crane Hyd Roller
Ross Pistons 10.5:1

Cam card for those interested.



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Kinda thought so, those are the one's I'm using as well.
Has that harmonic balancer worked out well for you? Any problems with pulley alignment etc, BBC water pump, correct? Anything different you would have done on the front about, brackets, pulleys etc?

 

That wasn't done by 'accident' was it?
I'm totally jealous by the way.

 

none of my business BUT what did you spend for the adj. rocker set-up & what was involved ? also i wish i had bought the roller cam for mine ?? what price range was it ?? it seems like im always spending money for parts twice ?? thanks mike

 

Haven't had any issues with the balancer so far. Had to shim the water pump pulley out a tad but other than that the alignment was pretty good. I would like a less street rod looking alternator bracket, though.

 

Sent you a PM

 

Good to see that you still have the drive to get-r-done. These old things can provide plenty of opportunity to make your wallet lighter. As you so astutely noted, that to do it right the first time is really the only way....

.

 

Purdy!!

 

Getting started on the block today.


This thing still had the original oil ball and check valve in the oil gallery. Wasn't too hard to get out though.

 

Terry Walters insisted that we use this coating inside of the water jackets to ensure us against any leaks. Leaks are bad, so we agreed. It is hard to get a good picture of it, but it is some type of rubberized black coating that is supposed to seal any porous spots in the water jackets.


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This afternoon we cleaned the block with hot water and a lot of soap. A pressure washer helped to expedite the process.


Got to try out my new set of brushes as well.


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The block is primed, now we just let it dry and then it'll be time for some color.

 

I just have one comment. Your hands are too clean.

 

So what exactly happened to the other engine?

I know this thread is about the "new" new engine, but I followed the other earlier new build too. I catch little clues and they are a bit vague. 331 bored for 354 slugs & 1 sleeve or 8? Was it a water jacket failure? Something ate the Pistons from the earlier build?? There's also talk about oil plugs and trash in the oiling system here yet in the other thread you mentioned the plugs too. Was it an oil system failure??



It's Nice to know what doesn't work as well as what does. Sucks your doing this again, I feel for you.

 

Pull up a chair, this might take a while. When then engine was first built in the early sixties, Harry (cousin) had his 331 block bored .125 over. His purpose for this engine was pure racing, so he didn't care about wall thickness. When we got a hold of it a couple of years ago, the cylinders were in OK shape, but #2 had some pitting which warranted a sleeve. All others were honed and we used Harry's 11:1 pistons with a thick head gasket to bring the C/R down to 10.5:1. So, the machine shop we took it to was, in hindsight, not set up for the job. The reason I said that we changed the plugs was that I was under the impression that the machine shop had removed the old ones and reinserted them after cleaning, which they didn't. We couldn't remove them because we didn't have the square drive thing that was required to do so, so we cleaned the block with them in. Evidently there was still a lot of trash built up in those two lifter oil galleries. After putting mufflers on the engine, we immediately noticed a ticking noise coming from the cylinder head/lifter valley area. Still don't know what it was. Crane said it could've been a lifter clogged with trash, maybe a retainer hitting the head, whatever. We took it apart. When we lifted the crank out, we saw that some of the bearings were in pretty bad shape, and the oil pump was just full of trash. At this point, we were still planning on using that block, so we took it to a better machine shop and asked them to sleeve all eight so we could buy new pistons for it. Unfortunately, dad told them to sleeve it and bore it back out to 354 size, which resulted in the sleeves busting through the water jackets and leaving us with a wall thickness of 1/8" before final boring. After talking with a lot of guys (including 73RR) we decided that we wanted something thicker for the street, so here we are.


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Clean parts=clean hands

 

I'll be watching.


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Does anybody know if Ross pistons use double spirolox? They sent a bag of 33 which would make sense for four per piston plus one extra, but I need to be sure.


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You should be able to stack two up and see if it matches the groove in the pin hole.

 

With their flathead pistons its one per side so 16 in total. Cant see you needing 33. If in doubt call them. But ive had 4 sets of Ross pistons and never that many spirolox

 

The grooves look pretty wide for using just one, I'm just scared I wouldn't be able to get the second one out if it turns out I was only supposed to use one. Would it be two grooves or just one big one?


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